The army set out with a flourish. Phoenician merchants followed it, having heard rumours of spices, one of their most precious trade goods. They were rewarded at first by a wilderness of myrrh and spikenard, whose bruising by the soldiers’ feet scented the air. But it was already inhospitable land, whose thorn bushes were so savage they could drag a man from his horse. Soon it was true desert, and no food convoys had come. Alexander as arranged sent troops to look for harbours, water and forage. What they found would have helped only the still unborn science of anthropology; the coast dwellers, as Nearchus later agreed, were “more like beasts than men”; covered with hair on body as well as head, using no tools but stones, living on raw fish, drinking from brack pools dug out with their clawlike nails; quite possibly an isolated pocket of Neanderthals. When a few victuals were found inland, Alexander kept faith with the fleet, and sent down a load to the shore to be left with a seamark; but on the way, the half-starved troops of the convoy broke the seals and ate it all. Their officers reported their need; Alexander accepted it and gave no punishments. It was growing clear already that the ships must shift for themselves; he would have enough to do with those in his own charge. They had sixty days of it; the most dreadful in most of their lives.
They came into a waste of soft, wind-piled sandhills, “letting them sink as if into wet mud or untrodden snow.” Horses and mules sank deeper than the men, and were more distressed, labouring over the ridges under burning sun. Autumn had brought no coolness. At long intervals there was water; the scouts would announce the length of the next march; though they moved by night, the sun was often up before they got there, and they had to press on or die. Mules and horses, foundering from exhaustion, were at once devoured, and soon their death was being expedited. Alexander was told, but turned a blind eye. His self-reproach is evident only from his conduct. He could not allow himself, as after Cleitus’ killing, the luxury of seclusion.
The loss of the baggage animals and their useless carts had a grim consequence: there was no transport for the sick, or those who collapsed from sunstroke. They could not be carried by men who could barely walk. Once fallen out, they simply waited for death; “most of them sank into the sand like men lost at sea.” Many died too from immoderate drinking when they came to water; they would wallow in it, fouling it for the rest. Later Alexander camped some distance from it; though not till after the march’s worst disaster. They had found a wide stream bed with a summer trickle, and made camp on the scoured sands. Rain falling in distant hills caused a sudden flash flood. Instead of the hoped-for relief it was lethal. He had ordered a night of rest; the surviving women and children had dossed down close to the stream; without warning, the wall of water carried more than half away. Next day was spent in the gruelling heat searching for the dead, to give them some minimal rite of passage. Had Alexander not been up in spite of his own fatigue, he too might have been drowned; his tent was swept off, and he lost all he had in it, depending on his friends for a change of clothes. He must have needed the small comforts that were gone; the ordeal would long since have begun to tell on him. Though at least he could be sure of a decent horse, he cannot have been fit for an all-night ride under such conditions; and all responsibilities fell on him. He was lucky to have brought Hephaestion; if only he had lived to write his memoirs! The value of his support, never put on record by his rivals, is shown by Alexander’s marks of honour later.
The column dragged on, the dying fell out, crying their names in case some friend might hear before the vultures settled. Despair was killing like a disease. Till now Alexander had ridden, and must have found that more than enough. Now he did what his nature compelled him to: dismounted, and began to lead the march on foot.
He did it, Arrian says, “with great difficulty, and as best he could.” This fixes the incident to its proper place in his story, for at no earlier time is such an observation likely to have been made. Arrian adds that he did it so that the troops should bear their toil more easily from seeing it shared by all; in other words, he had dismounted all the officers and would not make an exception of himself. On one of the long marches which went on into the heat of the day, he was seen to be “much distressed with thirst,” as well he might be; a man gasping for breath cannot shut his mouth against dust. He must have been much distressed with pain too, which he did not mention. His plight was evident; for when some of the skirmishers found a tiny puddle in a stony spruit, they hurried to him at once with the contents scooped in a helmet. It was an act of self-sacrifice to which he responded in kind; he thanked them, and poured away the water. It was as good as a share, Arrian says, to every man who saw it.
The account is detailed and factual; both Ptolemy and Aristobulus were on the expedition, and Nearchus got his information just after it. Yet there has been an odd tendency among biographers to suppose that because a slightly similar incident happened at the Oxus crossing, the story must have been transferred. It could rather be claimed that the first supports the second. The Oxus incident was largely his common form. It has been well said that when he had outdistanced other rivals he would still be the rival of himself; and in the Makran desert he was under special pressure to be so. At the Oxus the whole situation is less extreme, the hardship temporary; he does not pour away the water, for there will soon be enough for everyone, but just sends it on to the children it had been meant for; a fit young man, acting like a good officer. In Makran, he is half-dead on his feet, every breath an agony; he cannot conceal it from the onlookers. But men are dying like cattle, arguably through his misjudgment; he will not be seen taking privileges which might have saved their lives; and, even if it kills him, he will not fall below his legend. Nothing could be more typical. If one thing is certain about Alexander, it is that he valued his pride above his life.
As well as his pride he had kept his head. Dismounting the officers, which made him feel forced to walk, was much more than a gesture. Led, not ridden, a few horses were kept fit enough for work in an emergency. To this piece of foresight, what was left of the expedition was to owe survival. The crowning misery of a violent dust storm changed the contours of the area, and wiped out all the landmarks known to the guides. They had no knowledge of steering by the stars, and owned that they were lost Alexander saw, in this despairing moment, that if they wandered about they were doomed. The sea was on their left and they could steer to it by the sun. With the last usable horses, he led the scouting party himself. Man after man fell behind as in the noon heat the horses failed; with the last five he reached the sea. There was greenery near the shore; they dug and found fresh water. The news was brought to the army, and its ordeal was over. The guides now knew the way, and they were soon in inhabited land.
Alexander had bettered the disastrous records of Cyrus and Semiramis, whom, Nearchus’ memoirs said, it had been his ambition to outdo; but not by much. He had brought more survivors through; but it had still been a débâcle. Two factors had gone to it: the inadequate intelligence about the route which Nearchus speaks of, and the failure of supplies. The Macedonian satrap responsible for the stores was dead, as Alexander learned when he sent to have him arrested. For the rest of the disaster he sought no scapegoat; during the march and after, he took the whole burden on himself. He did not even blame the gods for it.